Google Health and MySpace

Google Health and MySpace

One of the more underappreciated aspect of the Silicon Valley ecosystem is that it is equally good at winnowing ideas that are no longer viable as it is at creating exciting new things. Therefore, I was reminded of the fanfare surrounding the prior glories of these two endeavors.

MySpace is sold off for $35mn to an advertising firm. And, Google Health + Google PowerMeter are retiring.

It would be interesting to see what these alum networks will spawn next.

* MySpace's $35mn deal: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/myspace-sold-to-advertising-firm-for-35-million/51623
* Google Health+PowerMeter: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/update-on-google-health-and-google.html

WDP Free Download (until June 28th)

The Leader's Checklist

Wharton Digital Press (WDP) first book is out. It is a collection of principles to help leaders do the right things by Wharton management professor Michael Useem. This book will be available as a free download until June 28, 2011, see the link below. (I don't think there is a POD, Print on Demand, option for this eBook)

Mission Critical: 15 Principles to Help Leaders Meet Their Toughest Challenges: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2799

Digital Insight

It is good to see that WDP is able to leverage assets like Knowledge@Wharton, which I am a faithful reader since inception, as a way to promote the book. On the other hand, it would be nicer for WDP to offer an "one-click" download process to make things simple. But, these are details.

What I really love to know more about is how has this digital publishing process impacted the data collection and analysis given the new level of interactivity. WDP could potentially be a new value-add data broker.

Talent War 2011

The Siren Sound

As I have noted on the ever shifting employee networks of Silicon Valley given its "at-will" employment contract. The first public salvo came from Google who offered an across the board salary increase in 2011. There are a analyses on the latest winners and losers of the latest "Talent Wars."

Not surprisingly, Apple, Facebook, and Google are all doing well, relatively speaking. The major casualty of the current phase is Yahoo who is losing a bit of its luster lately. The interesting winner is Twitter who, despite the persistent criticism of its lack of business model, is getting a lot of people to join.


* List of winners and losers of the talent war vintage 2011: http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1501275766337378089&postID=7523281652592663360
* A graphical analysis the current talent war: http://www.focus.com/images/view/42092/

Cloud and Mobile Smart Devices

A Blurring Line

I concluded my 2008 Cloud analysis by arguing that Cloud and Smart Devices were coming together. On one hand, smart devices as epitomized by iPhone are breaking the traditional separation between corporate and personal devices today. Namely, users are demanding and IT support are ceding to the desire to commingle private and corporate usage in the same personal device.

Furthermore, since Cloud Computing offers ubiquitous access, providing Cloud-based apps through the smart devices becomes a compelling value-add service to both mobile users and their IT support team.

Securing Corporate Assets

A potential hazard of mixing Cloud apps, smart devices, confidential data, and private usage is how to effectively secure the corporate assets without disturbing personal needs and habits.

Traditionally desktop solutions such as firewall, anti-virus, and VPN capabilities will need to be available on the smart devices. Equally important would be the ability for enterprises to secure corporate data and apps from workers' personal devices without compromising usability and remove information on the devices easily when the user is no longer part of the company.